HOUSTON, Texas - In a nation
where obsessive collectors bestow value on everything from bean bag animals to baseball
cards to anything the marketing department from Disney can pump out, there is
one authoritative set of collectibles that is truly one of a kind and out of
this world.

The
assortment contains bits of comet, samples of solar wind and particles of
interstellar dust. Also, toss in loads of meteorites and the collected works of
Apollo moonwalkers that lugged back to Earth lunar rock and dirt.

All
this and more are under the care of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation
Office at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). They curate the space agency's
current and future holdings of samples from out there.

Samples
can guide scientists in unraveling some of the unknowns surrounding the birth
and evolution of our solar system and the emergence of life.

Busted up and dirty

But
sometimes being on the receiving end of solar system samples can prove
unnerving.

That
was the case when NASA's Genesis sample container made a high-speed nosedive
into a Utah landing zone back in 2004--minus a parachute.

"All
the samples came back to Earth. They just busted up and got dirty," said
Carlton Allen, Astromaterials Curator and Manager of the Astromaterials
Acquisition and Curation Office here at JSC.

However,
it has been a painstaking job of extracting Utah mud, salt-filled water and shattered
spacecraft from whiffs of solar wind. "We're continuing to clean, analyze and
distribute samples. We're getting samples out and people are doing good science
with them," he told SPACE.com. "You can learn what the Sun was telling
us."

Stardust: prized cargo

On
January 15 of this year, after more than 7 years and billions of miles of
travel through space, NASA's Stardust spacecraft deposited its return capsule
on Earth loaded with prized cargo: pristine samples of comet particles captured
during the spacecraft's encounter with Wild 2 in January 2004. This time
parachute hardware worked as billed.

Scientists
have been busy studying this stash of primo specimens--nothing less than the
fundamental building blocks of our Solar System that formed 4.6 billion years
ago.

"With
Stardust, life's a whole lot easier," Allen said. "Less than a year after
mission return, we have high-quality science coming out of the science team."

In addition to discovering stardust, or particles older than the Sun, researcher recently announced they had found material from the hottest part of the solar system in a sample provided by Stardust.

Stardust
samples are now available to the worldwide science community at large on
request and following a normal peer review process. "Everybody has a shot at
Stardust samples," Allen added.

Furthermore,
thanks to Stardust@home -- http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.php
-- the public can volunteer to look for minuscule particles of interstellar
dust also bagged by Stardust. The intent is to locate the "best hits" in the
Stardust collector to be carefully removed next year for study at JSC and other
institutions.

Back to the Moon campaign

JSC's
Allen said that the need for Apollo lunar samples is on the upswing.

NASA's
back to the Moon campaign has meant a 50 percent increase in the number of
requests for lunar rocks and dust returned by Apollo moonwalkers.

Researchers
are studying everything from potential health hazards through inhalation of
lunar dust to using samples for building purposes as well as for processing -
particularly to make oxygen from lunar soil.

At
present, there are no formal plans within NASA to carry out land, scoop and
return duties using robotic spacecraft.

Apollo
astronauts brought back to Earth lunar specimens from 1969 through 1972. But
given future expeditionary returns to the Moon, Allen said more rocks and soil
will surely be transported back to Earth for further scientific scrutiny.

"We
understand mostly how to do that. We've been dealing with lunar rocks for
30-plus years," Allen explained. "We know how to take care of rocks."

Red planet plans

Hauling
back a suite of samples from Mars by automated means has long been on NASA's
red planet plans.

"Mars
is a different kind of place," Allen noted. "There are planetary protection
considerations with any kind of Mars sample."

A
study is now underway--led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory--to investigate a robotic
Mars sample return mission--making use of Ares boosters that are part of NASA's
Constellation program, Allen said.

In
addition, NASA's Mars Scout program has received sample return proposals, Allen
noted.

Unusual phenomenon

The
recent revelation that Mars might be home for water-spewing gully action is an
exciting prospect, Allen said. Nonetheless, dispatching any spacecraft to such
a locale would require adherence to planetary protection regulations - and
assuredly a big boost in mission price tag.

"We
would have to sterilize the entire spacecraft...something we did for the Viking
landers...and not impossible to do," Allen explained.

"The
idea that there is liquid that close to the surface is going to make us rethink
our ideas about the thermal history of Mars," Allen said. "The thought that
there are places on Mars you can go where you can sample liquid, or the remains
of a liquid flow that is absolutely modern, is very, very exciting."

Spotting
bright material spilling out onto the surface of Mars, perhaps salts of some
sort, is a "very unusual phenomenon," Allen observed.

Airless body

Picking
up bits of asteroids and toting them homeward are also being considered.

NASA
selected in October several prospective Discovery-class missions. One of those
now under study is the Origins Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification
and Security (OSIRIS) mission.

OSIRIS
would survey an asteroid and provide the first return of asteroid surface
material samples to Earth.

How
to deal with asteroid specimens and what sort of lab work and personnel would be
required is being reviewed.

"We
know about asteroid material from our meteorite collection," Allen said. "We
know about fine surface material from an airless body...from what we've done on
lunar samples. And there's nothing like having two flight missions--Genesis and
Stardust--under our belts to give us the confidence to support others."

Ice: warm up act

Yet
another specimen to add to the NASA JSC curatorial collection is ice.

"Ice
is something that we haven't dealt with before," Allen said. That material
might be found in the lunar exploration program--loitering in sunlight shy
craters--and is certainly part of a comet's makeup.

"One
of the things underway here over the next year is learning how to do curation
in sub-freezing temperatures. We've never had to do that," Allen remarked.

Future
work is needed on how best to bring ice back frozen all the way home...or ways to
monitor the ice very carefully and understand exactly what changes might be
induced by an ice sample warming up on the trek back to Earth.